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AN ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED 



By O. de a. SANTANGELO, 

AT 

A PUBLIC MEETING, HELD IN NEW-ORLEANS, 

BY 

THE CITIZENS OF THAT PLACE, 

HAVING CLAIMS AGAINST MEXICO. 






JOHN BALDWIN, Esq., '^^eM^mt. 

SAMUEL ELLIS, Esq., Slcuto.^^, 



PRINTED BY BENJAMIN LEVY. 



Szi ip 



At an adjourned meeting of those interested in claims upon the 
Mexican Government, held at Baulks Arcade, on Saturday 
Evening, 2d of February, 1839. 

John Baldwin, Esq. in the Chair. 

The report of the committee appointed to draw a memorial to 
Congress, was presented, and the same accepted, and a resolution 
passed to have it printed in the papers of this city. 

The meeting was addressed by O. de A. Santangelo, Esq. 

Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be presented^ to 
Mb.. Santangelo, for his eloquent address, and that he be 
requested to favor this meeting with a copy for publicaiion. 

Resolved, That one thousand .copies of the speech of Mr. 
Santangelo be published in pamphlet form, at the expense of 
this meeting, and a copy sent to each member of Congress, the 
Governors of the several States, and all individuals interested. 

Adjourned to meet at the same place on Wednesday Evening 
the 6th instant. 

SAMUEL ELLIS, Secretary. 

NewOri-eans, Febrtjary, 1839. 



//• 



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ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen— 

The complaints of a sufferer may be justly suspected of 
exaggeration and partiality; and in a meeting where resolutions 
are to be taken consonant both with the laws of the country and 
the principles of the most rigorous justice, no selfish view should 
ever influence in the least the heart of the speaker and the mind 
of the hearer. But shall we so calumniate human nature as to 
believe that no man upon earth can be found, capable of defend- 
ing the honor of a whole nation, or the individual rights of a 
respectable class of citizens, but when actuated by selfish motives 1 
And because public prosperity implies individual prosperity, should 
n(y individual be permitted to advocate its cause without being 
suspected of selfishness"? If this were the case, gentlemen, I 
would abstain from uttering a single word about the argument 
now under consideration in this assembl)^ Fortunately I am 
encouraged by the idea that the hypothesis alone of this being the 
case would prove an unpardonable oflTence to your uprightness 
and good sense. I will therefore proceed to solicit your kind 
attention to the following statement of facts, as Avell as to the 
consequences which I feel it to be my duty to draw from them, 
without however making the least mention of my own case, nor 
the least allusion to it. 

No child to its affectionate parents, no slave to his liberator, 
no wife to her kind husband, no friend to his benefactor, no pupil 
to his zealous instructor, no citizen to his benevolent country, 
was ever so basely, so perfidiously, so wantonly ungrateful as 
Mexico to the United States of America. When in 1818 several 
European potentates in the famous congress of Aix-la-Chapelle 
proposed making a crusade against some of the Spanish colonies 



4 

of South America, that had rebelled against their mother coun- 
try, the United States declared that they would not witness with 
indifference any foreign intervention in the contest between Spain 
and her colonies ; and from this arose the complaint made by 
some members of that congress against the "disposition evinced 
by the United States to recognize the independence of Buenos 
Ayres.*' This fact is spoken of in a letter of the 7th May, 1823;, 
addressed by J. Q. Adams, then Secretary of State under the 
presidency of Monroe, to Mr. Anderson, minister plenipotentiary 
of the United States to Colombia. The government of the 
United States solicited also the British cabinet to join it in recog- 
nizing the independence of such Spanish colonies as could be 
considered at that period completely emancipated : but this pro- 
posal was rejected. 

When in 1821 Mexico also declared her independence, a 
proposition was unhesitatingly made by the president to the con- 
gress of the Union for the immediate acknowledgement of ft ; 
which was only frustrated by the unsettled state of that country. 
But when the Spanish Cortes had declared on the 20th of Feb' 
ruary, 1822, the treaty to be null and void made between the 
Mexican chief Iturbide, and the Spanish envoy O'Donoju, 
tending to place on the independent throne of Mexico a Spanish 
prince, in virtue of which negative declaration Iturbide ascended 
himself that throne, the government of the United States in spite 
of the most clamorous protestations of the Spanish minister in 
Washington, Senor Anduaga, formally recognized Mexico to be 
a free and independent nation. Nor did our government cease, 
although in vain^ to take every possible measure to induce other 
nations to follow its own example. 

The subsequent decisions of the European holy alliance in 
the congresses of Tropau, Laybac and Verona, and the conse*- 
quent overthrow of all the constitutional governments in the 
South of Europe, did not leave any doubt of the intentions of 
the allied powers to favor the re-conquest of the ex -Spanish colo- 



nies by Ferdinand the VII ; and then president Monroe in his 
memorable message to congress of the 2d December 1823, 
declared that the United States would regard any attempt from 
the allied powers to extend their system (of legitimacy) to any 
part of this hemisphere, as dangerous to our peace and preserva- 
tion ; that all foreign interference between Spain and her colo- 
nies, directed to oppress or force in any manner their destinies, 
would be looked upon as a hostile disposition against the United 

States In fact, consistent with himself, Monroe employed the 

whole year 1824 (the last of his presidency) both to establish 
friendly relations with all the new American republics, and to 
organize the army, the militia and the navy of the Union on a 
respectable defensive footing. 

His successor Adams adopted tlie same principles, and 
redoubled his efforts to induce some of the leading European 
powers to oblige Spain to renounce all pretensions on her former 
colonies ; which clearly appears from the letter of the 20th May, 
1825, by the Secretary of State, Mr. Clay, to Mr. Middleton, 
minister plenipotentiary of the United States at Saint Petersburg ; 
and charged at the same time that worthy statesman, Joel R. 
Poinsett, with negotiating a treaty of amity, navigation and 
commerce with Mexico, where Ire arrived on the 26th of the 
same month of May. 

It will not be useless here to mention that the Mexican 
Minister at that time in Wasliington, Senor Pablo Obregon, after 
having invited, through his note of the 3d November 1825, the 
government of the United States to send its representatives to 
the Congress of Panama proposed by Bolivar, and whose object 
was to deliberate about the proper means of defending America 
against Europe, added, that the Mexicans did not expect any 
favor from the United States but their opposing foreign interference 
in their quarrel with Spain. 

Nor is it perhaps superfluous to record that when in 1825 a 
French squadron appeared in the gulf, the trembling Mexican 



government invoked the intervention of the United States, whose 
government did not hesitate asking from the cabinet of the 
Tuilleries satisfactory explanations, which were given ; and 
when in 1826 a handful of adventurers from the United States 
went to Texas and declared war against Mexico, the government 
of the Union took the most suitable measures to check the insur- 
rection and to punish those implicated. Certainly, in accor- 
dance with their principles, with their sympathies tov^rards 
the new American republics, with their own interests, and with 
their diplomatic manifestations, the United States would have 
taken up arms en masse against a powerful aggressor of Mexico, 
had it not been unnecessary ; firs(, because the new republics, 
and especially Mexico, were strong enough to fight Spain when 
left to her sole resources: secondly, because their armed inter- 
vention would have furnished the holy alliance with a plausible 
pretext of joining, sword in hand, the cause of the Spanish 
Bourbon. 

This conduct of the United States caused all the projects of 
Europe against American liberty to be averted, and by reducing 
Spain to her own miserable means, we enjoyed the comic specta- 
cle offered to the v/orld in 1828 by her general Barradas at Tam- 
pico. Also the American citizens contributed not a little in the 
failure of that Spanish hero ; for no one is ignorant of the obsta- 
cles they opposed in New-Orleans to the departure of one of the 
Spanish men of war, with five hundred soldiers, that for want of 
compass, perhaps, mistook her route, and was obliged to apply 
for provisions in this city. She could not weigh anchor again, 
until after the Spanish exploit in Tampico was finished. 

But what a contrast between the noble and chivalric beha- 
viour of the United States towards France that had co-operated 
so. efficiently in the consolidation of their independence against 
the effort.s of Great Britain to overthrow if, and that of Mexico 
towards the United States, without the bold steps of whom in 
their favor, their independence would have been annihilated in 



its very cradle. France has never ceased from that period to be 
a hearty friend to the American people, whilst Mexico has never 
ceased to heap wrongs upon wrongs of the most ferocious char- 
acter upon the government and citizens of the United States. 
Let us prove this assertion. 

It appears from several official publications of the govern- 
ment and Congress of the Union, that since the year 1816 com- 
plaints were made by American citizens against Mexico for out- 
rages and spoliations endured in that country. It was expected 
at first that the overthrow of the oppressive Spanish domination 
there, and on the other hand the luminous proofs of friendship 
given by this nation to Mexico, would have procured at once a 
speedy redress of all the American claims a-nterior to that period, 
and prevented in future all new offences fiom the neighboring 
sister republic. Contrary to this expectation, the former claims 
remained utterly disregarded, and numberless outrages of the 
worst character were the only fruit of the right acquired by the 
people of the United States to the eternal gratitude of that ami- 
able sister. Nor was the American minister Poinsett, himself, 
exempted from the most brutal attacks of the Mexican leaders, 
who succeeded in causing him to be recalled home without ter- 
minating the treaty he had so wisely negotiated. 

This treaty was, at last, concluded on the 5th of April 1831 
with the Mexican United States, upon a basis of the strictest 
reciprocity. New hopes were now entertained for a change of 
that absurd and savage policy which had constantly promoted 
or sanctioned so many injuries to our citizens Wiiroughout the 
whole Mexican territory. But, new disappointments. A canni- 
balic law appeared on the 22d of February of the following year 
1832, which destroyed at once, de fond-en-comble, one of the most 
important articles of the treaty, the article XIV., concerning the 
liberty, the life, the property and the honor of all foreigners, 
Americans not excepted, residing in the country, however legally 
introduced and established in it ; and soon a fresh succession of 



arbilrnry, atrocious and revolting acts, not from an ignorant and 
prejudiced mob, but from the cabinet itself, from the general 
Congress, from the slate governments, from all and every one of 
the administrative, judiciary, military and naval authorities, as 
well as from the public press, were exercised against all Ameri- 
can subjects indiscriminately, visitors or residents, all diplomatic 
or commercial agents from their country not excepted. 

The article XIV of the treaty is this : " Both the contract- 
ing parties promise and engage to give their special protection to 
the persons and property of the citizens of each other, of all occu- 
pations, who may be in their territories, subject to the jurisdiction 
of the one or of the other, transient or dwelling therein ; leaving 
open and free to them the tribunals of justice for their judicial 
resources, on the same terms which are usual and customary 
with the natives or citizens of the country in which they may 
be ; for which they may employ in defence of their rights, such 
advocates, solicitors, notaries, agents and factors as they may 
judge proper, in all their trials at law ; and the citizens of either 
party, or their agents, shall enjoy, in every respect, the same 
privileges in prosecuting or defending their rights of persons or of 
property, as the citizens of the country where the cause may be 
tried." 

Here is now the decree which virtually abolished the above 
article of the treaty : 

" The Supreme Grovernment of Mexico is hereby empowered 
to give passport to all foreigners, not naturalized, and expel them 
from the Repuhli(i^ii it judges their permanence in it to be prejudicial 
to public order, even if they have introduced and established 
themselves in it conformably with the rules prescribed by law." 

We must understand at Mexico, by the words " Supreme 
Government" the authority of a single individual called president, 
whose orders become lawful when signed by another individual 
called minister. The above decree gives then to two men full 
power of accusing, judging, condemning, despoiling, banishing^ 



killing", dishonoring, by themselves, and for motives known to 
themselves alone, every person not a Mexican citizen, that is to 
say, all mankind, except six millions of happy Mexican souls ! 
All foreigners, therefore, either alone or with their families, who 
have been legally introduced and established in Mexico, to seek 
an asylum from tyrannical persecutions, or to employ their talents 
or pecuniary means for the increase of all the sources of the pub- 
lic prosperity of the country, will be obliged to abandon in one 
moment, without the least objection, the lands they have bought, 
or which they are cultivating, the houses they have either bought, 
built, or richly furnished, the stores they have stocked, the work- 
shops, fabrics, manufactories and places of public or private 
instruction in all branches of knowledge, for the establishment of 
which they have expended immense sums of money, and all 
debts due to them, upon which their honor and whole fortune 
may probably depend ; and without having ready means or time 
enough to take their unhappy wives and children with them, to 
settle their accounts, to sell their goods, to leave efficient letters 
of attorney, be taken by soldiers, obliged to follow them on foot 
to pestilential places, be embarked as bales of cotton, and brought 
to lands which they have not chosen for their retreat, and which 
will probably become fatal to them. All foreign companies,- that, 
under the protection of the laws of the country and of public 
faith, have employed millions of dollars for the exploration of 
mines, which the natives are in the impossibility of rendering 
productive, when arrived at the moment they hope to reap the 
fruit of their money and labors, will be declared by the supreme 
government of Mexico to be suspected persons, and expelled from 
that hospitable republic as dogs, and their propert3/ left to the 
first occupant. Nor will foreign merchant's vessels or ships of 
war entering Mexican ports, be exempt from the blessings of 
Mexican despotism : their men or crew may be declared suspected 
persons, and kept in irons until they weigh anchor again for for- 
eign ports. All this could be legally done and has hitherto been 



10 

done in Mexico, in virtue of the decree of the 22d of February 
1832, derogatory to the solemn treaty of the 8th of April of the 
preceding year 1831 ; and the talented Mexican rulers, with a 
double edged cutlass in hand, are always right. When an 
injured citizen of the United States asks for redress in contentious 
matters through the diplomatic agents of his country, the supreme 
government of Mexico replies : " Go and ask it from the com- 
petent tribunals, in virtue of the treaty of 1331 :" this was the 
answer given by the Mexican minister of foreign affairs Mr. 
Monasterio to the charge d'affaires of the United States Mr. Ellis, 
in his note dated Mexico, November 15, 1836. And when an 
American citizen declaims against an arbitrary banishment, the 
reply is ; "I have banished thee in virtue of the law of 1832." 
Has ever the cabinet of Washington taken notice of this Mexican 
trick? Has it ever complained of such a flagrant violation of 
the treaty on the part of the Mexican lawgivers 1 Not one word. 

Things came at lasl to such an extremity that the ulterior 
forbearance of our cabinet could no longer go on without becom- 
ing too scandalous. Its silence was now impossible. But its 
agents in Mexico were not the most Upropos to plead efficiently 
its cause. Butler, the charge d'affaires Avas said to be an 
apalhist ; and the actual United States consul general in Mex- 
ico, William Parrot, was a broker to the government, sold to 
the interests of Mexico; so that a single word on his part in 
behalf of an American citizen, would have put in jeopardy his 
fortune. All the solicitations of our government for redress 
remained, of course, disregarded as usual, and new motives were 
hourly afforded for new claims. 

The government of Mexico, informed that a number of 
spirited lovers of liberty and justice, were gallantly rushing from 
the interior of our union into Texas to defend those pacific and 
virtuous colonists against a powerful army destined to extermi- 
nate them, only because they were not willing to resign in the 
hands of a military despot the sovereignty of the free and inde- 



11 

pendent state, of which they formed an integrant part, imagined 
now to send to Washington its ablest diplomatist to inculcate 
upon our president the duly of preventing all free citizens from 
going wherever ihey pleased at their ovi'n expense and risk. 
This diplomalist was Senor Edward Gorostiza, who arrived at 
Washingion in February or March, 1836; and in the following 
April, (he new charge d'affaires of the Uniied States, Mr. Pow- 
hatan Ellis, reached Mexico to reimplace Mr, Butler. 

Many months were employed respectively by both agents in 
fruitless negotiations. The Secretary of State Forsyth had sent, 
through a special messenger, Mr. WjUiam A. Weaver, instruc- 
tions dated the 20th of July, to Mr. Ellis in Mexico, that " if no 
satisfactory answer was given by the Mexican government to his 
just demand within three weeks, he should inform it that, unless 
redress was afforded without unnecessary delay, his further resi- 
dence in Mexico would be useless ; and if the same state of 
things continued longer, he should give formal notice to the 
Mexican government that, unless a satisfactory answer should be 
given within a fortnight, he was instructed to ask for his passport, 
and return to the United States, bringing with him the archives 
of the legation," 

While these transactions were going on, Senor Gorostiza, on 
the 15th October, 1836, asked suddenly for his passports in 
Washington, and soon after he- addressed a note to the state 
department exposing the motives of his resolution. He was then 
informed, on tjie 20th hy Mr. Dickerson, that the president of 
the United States v»'ould instruct Mr. Ellis to make such expla- 
nations to the Mexican goveinment as he believed would be satis- 
factory. Nevertheless Senor Gorostiza thought it proper to take 
upon himself the honorable charge of defaming the government 
and the people of the United States en masse in the eyes of the 
world. With the view of exciting the hatred both of foreigners 
and natives against the cabinet of the United States, he com- 
menced by publishing in the " Courier des Etats Unis" of ^l^w 



12 

York the above note to Forsyth, filled with slanderous and gra- 
tuitous misconceptions of the result of his mission, and soon after 
he distributed a pamjDhlet (in Spanish that he had printed before 
hand in Philadelphia) among the members of the foreign diplo- 
matic body in Washington and many editors who made extracts 
of it in their journals ; and which contained a large part of his 
official correspondence with both the governments of Washington 
and Mexico. This publication not authorized by either govern- 
ment, was of itself a dastardly crime, even if it had contained no 
reproachable statements ; for although his mission had ceased 
from the moment in which, he solicited his passport, yet he was 
still intrenched, in virtue of his very passports, behind the immu- 
nities and privileges inherent to his diplomatic character, until he 
was out of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. And 
in fact, had one of our pettish people attempted to break the 
hunch with which the shoulders of our diplomatist were adorned, 
would not the Mexican government have had a just motive for 
complaint, not of an assault and battery against one of its sub- 
jects, but against the sacred person of its representative under the 
safe guard of the law of nations 1 But, in fact, his pamphlet 
was nothing but a defaming libel against the government and 
the people of the United States. Behold some of its delicacies. 
He asserted that since a long time the United States aimed to 
possess themselves with a territory belonging to a friendly power ; 
that since 1819 when they stipulated the treaty of Florida, they 
had acknowledged Texas as belonging to Spain, and for want of 
good faith and integrity they now designed to appropriate it to 
themselves ; that their government, whilst meditating the usurpa- 
tion, filled the ears of the Mexican minister with protestations of 
affection for his government, and of its strictest neutrality in the 
Texian question ; that the people of the United States en masse, 
with the exception of a small fraction, were necessarily ignorant, 
and could be blindly guided by dishonest, greedy, uprincipled and 
consequently unbridled flatterers etc. 



13 

There were two subjects of complaint from this courteous 
and learned Mexican diplomatist : 1st, the occupation of Nacog- 
doches by our troops : 2dly, the aid afforded to the Texians in 
their struggle with Mexico, by some of our citizens. 

On the 1st point he had been answered that the momentary 
occupation of Nacogdoches was a measure warranted by the 
treaty of 1831, on account of the inability of Mexico to prevent 
her own Indians from committing depredations upon the citizens 
■of the United States on the other side of the Sabine. In the war 
raging in !.Texas, the Texian troops were between those of 
Mexico and the warhke Indians along the frontier of the United- 
Stales. It was then impossible for Mexico to restrain and force 
those tribes within her limits, as she had engaged in the 33d 
article of said treat}?- ; and consequently it had become a duty of 
the president of the United States to order a body of troops to 
stand upon the line, in accordance at once with the treaty, the 
law of nations, and the universal law of self defence. For these 
imperative reasons, and on account of there being a great dis- 
tance between the Sabine and Washington, the American com- 
mander had been invested with discretionary powers, which 
were revoked^ and the troops recalled within the limits of the 
Union, as soon as the apprehensions of an invasion of Indians 
had disappeared. 

As to the 2d point, it had been answered that orders had 
been given to seize and punish, according to law, all persons 
found arming for the purpose of violating the neutrality of the 
United States, in the contest pending in Texas ; but, that the 
same favor would be shown to Texas as had been shown to all 
the new American republics in their contest with Spain ; for 
which both Mexicans and Texians had the privilege to enter our 
ports to procure provisions, ammunitions etc. And certainly 
this was all that our government could do to please Seiior Goros- 
tiza. Who could ever believe that this worthy Mexican nego- 
tiator had pushed so far his extravagance as to demand that " the 



14 

ports of the United States should be shut against all Texian ves- 
sels; that they should be seized aspirates whenever they appeared 
in our borders ;" and upon hearing of the blockade proclaimed 
by the government of Texas, that " vessels should be sent by 
the United Slates, (o seize and punish as pirates all Texian 
vessels found susiaim'ng that blockade, etc." So it was. The 
learned Mexican diplomatist had mistaken the treaty of amity, 
navigation and commerce, existing between the United States and 
Mexico, for a treaty of defensive and offensive alliance, and pre- 
tended to engage the United States in a war against Texas, that 
is, in the domestic quarrel between Texas and Mexico ! ! ! 

What could then justify the defamatory conduct of Senor 
Gorostiza ? and what was the answer of the Mexican govern- 
ment, to the complaint made on this most important subject by 
Mr. Ellis by order of his government ] The answer was this : 
" The minister has done nothing but what the dignity and the 
interests of Mexico required." This was communicated from 
Mexico by Mr. ElHs to Mr. Forsyth at Washington in his note 
of the 9th December ; and this new act of Mexican impudence 
■determined the departure of Mr. Ellis from the country. 

In the mean time, the American Consul in Vera Cruz Mr. 
Burrough had participated, in date of the 3d November, to Mr. 
Ellis the outrage committed the preceding day by the military 
commander of that place general Gregorio Gomez on the U. S. 
sloop of war Natchez, Wm. Mervine, commander, by seizing 
and imprisoning eight seamen attached to that vessel, after hav- 
ing been cowardly attacked, beaten, wounded by a ferocious 
mob and soldiery ; and I found to be here remarkable the 
answer of Mr. Ellis, dated the 15ih November, 1836 : " On the 
examination, said he to the consul, of the documents, I was 
struck with amazement to find that general Gregorio Gomez 
had been appointed to (he command of the plaza at Vera Cruz, 
after his dismissal from the service for improper conduct to Ame- 
rican officers at Santa-Anna-de-Tamaulipas (Tampico.) In the 



15 

present, age such an instance of punic faith is not to be found in 
the history of any civihzed nation on earth. I will make no fur- 
ther comment on this extraordinary and reckless act on the part 
of this government (of Mexico.) The day of reuibiilion will 
come, and a heavy one it will be for the people of Mexico, etc." 
None would have imagined that the prophecy of Mr. Ellis was 
to be realized rather by the French than by the American point 
tChonneur. But our government had no time to spare from its 
eternal ian/cmo" question. 

President Jackson could not retire from liis high station v;ith- 
out taking a step, which ought to free him from all blame, and 
fronti all responsibility before that inexorable and dreadful tribunal 
called "public opinion." In his last message to Congress of the 
7th February, 1837, he recomniendecl reprisals against Mexico 
in the case of a last demand being disregarded, as it had hap- 
pened with many precedent ones. This message was accompa- 
nied with correlative documents, the last of which was dated the 
12th of the preceding month of January, and which were pub- 
lished in a pamphlet of 170 pages, together with a list of forty-six 
claims, going from 1816 to 1836. 

The committee of the Senate, to whom the message was 
referred, said in their report of the 18th Febi'uary : "From the 
documents submitted to the committee, it appears that ever since 
the revolution of 1822, which separated Mexico from Spain, and 
even for some years before, the United Stales have had repealed 
causes of just complaint against the Mexican authorities. From 
time to time, as these insults and injuries have occurred, demands 
for satisfaction and redress have been made, which hitherto have 
proved unavailing. It was expected that after the date of the 
treaty of amity, commerce and navigation, concluded on the 5lh 
of April, 1831, these causes of complaint would have ceased to 
exist. The treaty so clearly defines the rights and the duties of 
the respective parties, that it seemed almost impossible to misun- 
derstand or to mistake them. But, in fact, all the causes of com- 



16 

plaint against Mexico, which had been specially noticed in the 
correspondence referred to the committee, had occurred since the 
conclusion of this treaty. * * * * * * * 
***** If the government of the United 

States were disposed to exact strict and prompt redress, the com- 
mittee might, with justice, recommend an immediate resort to 
war, or to reprisals. They.'assent, however, to the sentiments 
expressed by the president in his message, that " The lengtli of 
time since some of the injuries have been committed, the repeat- 
ed and unavailing applications for redress, the wanton character 
of some of the outrages upon the property and persons of our 
citizens, upon the officers and flag of the United States, inde- 
pendent of recent insults to this government and people by the 
late extraordinary Mexican minister, [this Senor is now the 
minister of foreign affairs in Mexico] would justify, in the eyes 
of all tiations, immediate war. That remedy, however, should 
not be used by just and generous nationsj confiding in their strength^ 
for injuries committed, if it can be /ionora6/?/ avoided ; and con- 
sidering the present embarrassed condition of that country, we 
should act with both wisdom and moderation, by giving to Mex- 
ico one more opportunity to atone for the past, before we take 
redress into our own hands ****** 

* * adding that : " This opportunity should be given 

with the avowed design and fidl preparation to take immediate satis- 
faction, if it should not be obtained on a repetition of the demand 
for it ; and that to this end an act should be passed authorizing 
reprisals, and the use of our naval force by the executive against 
Mexico, to enforce them in the event of a refusal of the Mexican 
government to come to an amicable adjustment of the matters in 
controversy, upon another demand thereof." The committee 
therefore recommend that the subject be presented before Con- 
gress at the commencement of the next session, not doubting that 
such measures will be immediately adopted as may be necessary 
to vindicate the honor of our country, and insure ample repara- 
tion to our injured fellow-citizens, etc. and concluded their 



17 

request with the recommendation of the following- resolu- 
tion : 

" Resolved, That the Senate concur with the President of 
the United States, that another demand ought to be made for the 
redress of our grievances from the Mexican government, the 
mode and manner of which, under the 34lh article of the treaty, so 
far as it may be applicable, are properly confided to his discretion. 
They cannot doubt, from the justice of our claims, but that this 
demand will result in speedy redress ; but should they be disap- 
pointed in this reasonable expectation, a slate of things will then 
have occurred which will make it the imperative duty of Congress 
promptly to consider what further measures may be required by 
the honor of the nation, and the rights of our injured fellow- 
citizens, etc." 

This honest resolution was passed, of course, by both houses, 
and the ultimatum was respectfully submitted by Mr. Ellis to the 
Mexican satrap ; and what was the result ] Now it was not a 
minister, a president, a man, who took upon himself the personal 
responsibihty about the answer to be given to the American ambas- 
sador. It was the General Congress of the Mexican central 
republic, that is the Mexican nation itself. And what was this 
answer? A formal and solemn sovereig-n decree, rendered on 
the 20lh May, 1837, and conceived in the following terms : 

ARTICLE 1st. 
"The supreme government is hereby authorized to compro- 
mise the claims which the government of the United States has 
instituted, or may hereafter institute, and those in which they 
cannot agree may be submitted to the decision of a friendly 
power, the United States of America agreeing thereto. 

ARTICLE 2nd. 

The supreme government is further hereby authorized, that 
in case the United Slates of America should refuse^ or not give 



18 

in a stated time, satisfaction, which on our part we have a right 
to demand, according to the treaty, or in case the open aggressions 
should continue, which have been commenced, to close our ports to 
the commerce of said nation, to prohibit the introduction and the 
use of its manufactures, to point out a period to consume or 
€xport those already in the country, and to adopt all the neces- 
sary means to effect said measures, and the safety o£ the republic." 
So that, as to the American claims the Mexican lawgivers 
refer them to a third power ; and as to the supposed claims of 
Mexico, they take into their own hands the task of avenging 
them by shutting their ports against our commerce, prohibiting 
the introduction of our manufactures, etc. What the appropriate 
answer to such a specimen of stupid audaciousness would be, I 
am at a loss to state. We will make in another place our obser- 
vations on the singular idea of referring individual claims to the 
decision of a third power ; and as to the second article, " it will 
be perceived, said an editor of this city on the 4th of July, 1837, 
that the Mexican authorities assume a menacing attitude. We 
are told that unless the United States within a stated time, shall 
give satisfaction which the Mexican government declare they 
have a right to exact, their ports will be closed to our commerce. 
This declaration if it did not provoke our contempt, would excite 
our indignation to such a degree that we would soon put its effi- 
cacy to the test. What consummate impudence and folly ! Our 
government has borne with a saint-like patience, knowing the 
weakness of the aggressing party, her want of civilization, and 
her total inability to cope with us in a resort to arms, insults 
which would have long ago drawn upon a powerful nation all 
the vengeance that such flagitious conduct deserved. But we 
have borne all the accumulated wrongs that the greatest forbear- 
ance could admit of. We have suffered her to capture our ves- 
sels to incarcerate our citizens, and confiscate our property, 
simply availing ourselves of our strength in some extreme cases 
to release what she had unlawfully detained, and recapture what 



19 

she had plundered. For this she pretends to have just cause of 
complaint, and holds the rod of correction over us, if we do not 
seek to make her a speedy reparation. Surely this is the most 
consummate piece of impudence that ever was heard of ! &c." 

To this we would add only two words, about the same 
article 2d of the Mexican decree. It is spoken there of open 
aggressions commenced on the part of the United States, a com- 
plaint of which no mention had been made in any of the preced- 
ing diplomatic negotiations, so that it is impossible to conceive 
from what source the wise Mexican Congress had derived such 
rare information. But it wanted to create in its fertile imagina- 
tion a pretext not merely to oppose the justice of the American 
claims, but to erect itself into a claimant by way of recrimina- 
tion, to afford to itself an opportunity for a display of braver}'', 
thus realizing the fable of the ass that, clothed with the skin of 
a lion to frighten a tiger, on his being known when uttering his 
threats in his natural language, w^s lorn to pieces. It demanded 
satisfaction for grievances that it did not allege, and grounded its 
demands on a treaty of which it did not quote a single word ; the 
very treaty which Mexico, federtil and central, had a hundred 
times barefacedly trampled upon. It never had in its idea that 
the treaty which it was used to invoke only when it suited its 
views, was only existing by the mercy and courtesy of our 
terque quaterque bonus cabinet, since the day in which the federal 
Mexican government, with which it had been stipulated, had 
been radically destroyed and supplanted by a military monarchy 
speciously called central govermnenl ? Does not the change of a 
political system in any countiy, implicitly afiect its foreign rela- 
tions *? Are the relations established wnth a confederacy of twenty 
sovereign free and independent states, to be considered as essen- 
tially productive of the same consequences, and identically sui- 
table to the politics of both parties, as if estabhshed with a 
nation, whose power is concentrated in the hands of a military 
despot 1 No ; we had and we have no treaty with Mexico, 



20 

because the Mexican United States wilh which it was conchided, 
exist no more, and because the central government of JMexico has 
neither renewed, nor ever observed it, in several of its most 
important provisions. 

From the archives of our legation at Mexico brought by Mr. 
ElUs to Washington, as w^e have already mentioned, Mr. Forsyth 
secretary of state, then under the presidency of Van Buren, 
derived more exact information, and whilst he excluded from the 
former list of claims those which were of a doubtful character, 
or which had been already adjusted by the interested parties, he 
added to it others not before mentioned, and drew up a new 
chronological list of claims amounting to the number of 57, going 
from the year 1817 to 1837, comprising in them the forced loans 
that had been just exacted in Mexico from the citizens of the 
United States, and the flagrant outrages just committed by the 
Mexican squadron in the gulf, against the commerce and the 
citizens of the United Slates. 

This new list was sent by a special messenger to (he govern- 
ment of Mexico, and presented lo it on the 20tli of July, 1837. 
The answer given by that government on the 29lh of the same 
month, was that the government icould not fail to answer each of the 
above complaints after having examined them, and lootdd omit nothing 
to effect a speedy and equitable adjustment. 

Here I must be permitted to ask: When on the 20th of 
July, the new list was presented to the Mexican government, 
was our govermiient ignorant of the decree passed tbe 20th of 
May, that is, two months before that presentation ? If it were so, 
lo whom must u-e attribute t!ie fault of such inexcusable igno- 
rance in a matter of so transcendant a nature 1 If it were not so, 
how could our president swallow a decree that excluded by itself 
all hopes of adjustment, and wounded so deeply our national 
honor, as we have already demonstrated ? 

The fact is that on the 14th October of that year arrived at 
Washingion the new Mexican minister plenipotentiary, Pizarro 



21 

Marllnea, who, not before the 18th of November, presented the 
so long solicited answer of his government, contained in ten notes 
upon the 3d, 6th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15ih and 17th claims, 
from the tenor of which notes it appeared that the Mexican gov- 
ernment had not in the least examined the documents transmit- 
ted to it in July by our state department. 

After not less than five months the Mexican government in a 
more positive manner, answered to only four claims out of the 57 
comprehended in the printed list: the 1st. concerning the vessel 
Louisa : the 2d. the brig Cossack : the 3d. the case of Chouteau 
and Demun : the 4th5 the den^and made by our government for 
the reprehension of the conduct of Senoi" Gorostiza in Washing- 
Ion. 

On (he 2d December the Secretary of State, Forsyth, 
submitted to the president Van Buren a full report of oil the 
occurrences above quoted, together with all the correlative docu- 
ments he had in liis possession ; and president Van Buren in his 
message to Congress of the 5th of the same month, said in sub- 
stance, that "the honor and integrity of the government had 
impelled his predecessor to recommend in the 2d session of the 
past Congress, a measure to obtain a speedy and decisive satisfac- 
tion for the injuries inflicted by the Mexican government to the 
citizens and the government of the United States itself; that he 
(his predecessor) had recommended a last demand, and in case of 
its being disregarded, the authority to the executive to commence 
reprisals; that both houses agreed in his opinion, but they 
expressed repugnance to invest the executive with a discretional 
authority as to the mrmner of obtaining redress. He, then, had 
sent a new demand to Mexico, to which only a few days before 
(the period of this message) lie had received some answer ; but 
neither from the report of the Secretary of State, nor from the 
documents transmitted, did it appear that satisfaction had been 
given to a single complaint, except in one case of personal afironf, 
and four others, on which (iie Mexican government had pro- 



22 

nounced its decision. He, the president, transmitted therefore, 
said documents to Congress, to resolve upon the time, the mode and 
the measures of redress, etc. We read afteiwards in some periodi- 
cal production that the resolution of referring the pending 
controversy between the United States and Mexico to a foreign 
arbitration was warmly sustained, on the 26th December, 1837, 
in the house of representatives, by some highly respectable gen- 
tlemen, and especially by the Hon. John Quincy Adams, who on 
this occasion was not very gallant towards the Hon. Mr. Cambre- 
leng, whose opinions on the subject were not in accordance with 
his own. But, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Great men do 
not make small mistakes ; and the very eccentricity universally 
attributed to that venerable patriot, must suffice to insure our 
respect for his public and private virtues. Has he not been 
thought, for a long time, to be an abolitionist, while we hear now 
from his own lips that he is not 1 Let us, then, form no teme- 
rary judgments. Adams is now thought to be a warm friend to 
Mexicans ; and we will soon hear that he is not. He cannot love 
at once Mexico and the honor of his own country. 

Here, Gentlemen, I am obliged to stop in the narrative of 
facts. I am ignorant of the report of the committee to whom the 
above message was referred, of the final enactment of Congress, 
and of the subsequent transactions of the executive on the sub- 
ject. Deeply disheaiiened by the circumstance of my having 
found in this message not a word about the Mexican decree of 
May, a decree which ought to have suggested to our chief magis- 
trate a very different language, I regarded the cause of the 
claimants as desperate, and took no longer care of collecting 
docm-nents relating to it. Your present calling of a meeting on 
the same subject has now, if not awakened new hopes in my 
heart in favor of our injm-ed fellow citizens, at least inspired me 
with an honest desire of contributing in some way to the support 
of our national honor so gravely compromised in this unhappy 
transaction. 



23 

From what I learned at the time from Mexico, the people of 
that capital, on knowing that the course proposed by their cabi- 
net relative to a foreign arbitration had been adopted by that of 
Washington, sang a solemn thanksgiving, highly pioclaiming 
our government to be the sweetest government in the world ; and 
from what the press has reported up to this moment amongst us, 
it seems that really the Mexican minister at Washington received 
some time ago full powers from his government to negotiate with 
ours the adjustment of the controversy, by referring it to the 
decision of a foreign power ; that the choice had fallen on the 
King of Prussia ; that an agreement was then drawn up concern- 
ing the time, the mode and the place in which a delegate of the 
Prussian monarch is to decide the question without appeal ; that 
the ratification of this agreement is still expected from Mexico to 
open a correspondence ad hoc with the cabinet of Berlin ; that 
the Mexican government is now finding faults upon this agree- 
ment although proposed by itself, &c. Whether all these things 
are true or not, I am unable to state ; but in the hypothesis of 
their being correct, I deem it to be my duty, in my capacity of 
an American citizen, to submit to you my own ideas on such 
transactions, on their probable consequences, which is perhaps 
not unimportant to foresee, and on the best course that, in my 
humble opinion, ought to be pursued, both to insure the rights of 
the interested parties, and to guard the American name from dis- 
honoring censure. 

I shall take here no notice. Gentlemen, of the curious fact 
of a Roman exclusive, intolerant, catholic republic, trusting to a 
Calvinist prince the decision, without appeal, of her quarrel with 
another republic ; and of a government, republican par excellence, 
abandoning the fate of a number of its free subjects to the hon 
plaisir of an absolute king. Jesting aside, philosophy has made 
such progress that an intolerant worshipper and a worshipper not 
tolerated are justly to be looked upon as good brothers ; and thu& 
it is our duty to acknowledge that the sheep is the beloved sister 
of the wolf, and the tiger the affectionate mother of the rabbit. 
Let us go then to the point. 



24 

Admitting- that Mexican obstinacy leaves no hope for amicable 
adjustment, and that it is an indispensable duty on the part of 
our g-Qvernment to procure redress for its injured citizens, upon 
which two objects many discordant opinions have been mani- 
fested as regards the mode and manner of procuring it, we will 
remark, that some of these opinions have been founded upon the 
principle that justice should be preferred to convenience, and 
others, that convenience should be preferred to justice. The 
rights of the claimants have been put in contrast with the 
national interest of preferring peace to war, and nothing would 
be more' plausible, if the rights of the claimants were absolutely 
independent from national commercial interests, and national 
honor, more trampled upon in this case, than the interests of the 
claimants. All questions might be reduced to the two fol- 
lowing : 

1st. Is foreign arbitration just, or convenient 1 or both T or 
neither 1 

2d. Would war be just, or convenient 1 or both 1 or 
neither? 

But, why engage in a discu.ssion which has been alread}'^ 
resolved by Congress, and agreed to by both the contending 
governments 1 Supposing in private citizens the right of oppos- 
ing a measure which attacks their right of property, have they 
the force to frustrate it? And even in the supposition of their 
having this force, would it be patriotic for them to disturb the 
public peace for their individual interests? What will then 
Congress reply to a petition tending to have that measure revok- 
ed, if already ratified by both governments? a round and power- 
ful NO. And what, therefore, can be the object of my present 
address to you, Gentlemen ? This is it : 

1st. That in case of the agreement in favor of a foreign arbi- 
tration not being yet ratified by both Mexico and Washington, 
the matter be reconsidered by Congress, and our respectful obser- 
vations be properly appreciated. 

3d. That in case of the irrevocability of the measure, and 
consequently of our necessity to submit patiently to it,, our 



25 

government be with equal respect prompted to put it into execu- 
tion without further delay, and to adopt all possible means to 
cause the Prussian delegate to be properly instructed of the true 
state of things, and at the same time to prevent him from being 
influenced by Mexican intrigue. 

3d. Finally to remove, if possible, many erroneous opinions 
prevailing amongst a large portion of the nation, about the law 
of nations in similar contests in general, and the conduct, either 
too moderate or too hostile, of our government towards Mexico in 
particular. 

Supposing now the case of the question being not yet resolv- 
ed, I will endeavor to demonstrate : 

1st. That foreign arbitration is both unjust and incon- 
venient. 

2d. That war, if truly no hopes for adjustment exist, would 
be at once just, convenient, indispensable. 

FIRST QUESTION PRUSSIAN ARBITRATION. 

When, not long since, France and the United States left to 
the English cabinet the adjustment of a quarrel, to which certain 
words of president Jackson had rightly or wrongly given room, 
the curious principle began to prevail that in all cases nations 
should refer their contests to foreign arbilration, rather than have 
recourse to the ultima ratio, the sword. It would be a mere waste 
of time to demonstrate that this very principle of foreign inter- 
vention in all controversies between nations, if generally adopted, 
would soon subvert the world, and plunge it into a chaos of Vv^ars, 
rebellion and blood. Let us, therefore, limit ourselves to 
consider the impropriety of all comparison between the Eng- 
lish arbilration in the Franco-American question, and the contem- 
plated Prussian arbitration in the Mexico-American case. 

All claims of American citizens on France were settled : 
she had nobly acknowledged them ; and a treaty between the 
two nations had been stipulated on the 4th of July, 1831, on 
such a solid basis of right and justice, that it had become impos- 



^6 

sible for either government to oppose the smallest of its clause?. 
But a new question arose in regard to the execution of the treaty ; 
and, as it appeared to our president to be too long deferred on the 
part of France, he deemed it his duty to recommend to Congress, 
a resort to reprisals in case of eventual unnecessary delay; which 
recommendation, although rejected by Congress, appeared to be 
an insulting threat in the opinion of the French cabinet. Behold 
a question merely of words, a mere point d'honneur ; and there- 
fore a conciliatory interference of a third friend was more than 
convenient. Nay, it was almost indispensable to prevent a rup- 
ture between two great and powerful nations, in which the peace 
of all Europe might have been jeopardised. 

Our case is wholl}'^ different. We claim redress in favor of 
our oppressed citizens, of our injured com.merce, of our insulted 
flag, of our outraged government and nation; and Mexico not 
only refuses it, but treats us with calumny and scorn, fulminates 
provoking threats against the people and government, and far 
from making (or showing the least disposition to make) amicable 
adjustments, she proclaims herself in the right of demanding 
satisfaction and redress from us ; and whilst sending us for justice 
to Berlin, she endeavors to retain for herself the authority of 
chastising us with her own hands for wrongs of which we have 
no knowledge. In our misunderstanding with France, the Brit- 
ish mediator had not to liquidate private claims, nor to transact 
ad libitum individual rights. He was not to examine the import- 
ance of assassinations, spoliations and outrages inflicted on citi- 
zens of either the contending parties, nor any of those offences 
which require an immediate check, and consequently an imme- 
diate demand for reparation, and speed}^ measures to obtain it. 
The alleged example of the English arbitration (and between 
mediation and arbitration there is a great difference) has therefore 
not the slightest influence in our case, nor any other instance, 
having the remotest allusion to it, is (o be found in the annals of 
ancient or ;Tiodern diplomacj^. To send an American citizen 



27 

injured by Mexicans to obtain redress from Prussians, is indeed 
an invention worthy of patent, but somewhat pindarical. 

We could now ask with some propriety, in virtue of what 
recognized law, disposition or tenet, can the executive or legisla- 
tive power of a nation commit individual interests to any arbitra- 
tion whatever, without the assent of the interested parties 1 If 
the ill-feeling, the eccentricity, an instinct of antipathy, or the 
possible venality of the I*russian delegate, deprives a claimant of 
the whole or a part of what is justly his due, who is to answer or 
compound for the damages 1 And would not a foreign arbiter, 
coming from the Eiba or the Weser, thoroughly ignorant of the 
Mexican rascality and the natural uprightness of the American 
character, find to be incredible the outrages committed by the 
former, and believe exaggerated the demands of the latter ] And 
because governments can transact public matters, either directly 
or through arbitration with foreign principalities, are they to be 
thought invested also with the power of disposing of private pock- 
ets 1 Would not this practice destroy radically the sacred and 
inviolable right of property'? Could a stranger or a native 
unknown to me, constitute himself an arbiter between me and 
my debtor or creditor, without being considered as a madman 1 

Finally, would it not be extremely humiliating and degrad- 
ing to a government to convert itself into a cold, passive and 
patient spectator of an unappealable judgment rendered by a 
foreigner, injurious perhaps to its own subjects, and become 
their civil executioner by imposing upon them a fidl acquiescence 
and a blind obedience to the result of the arbitration ? Would 
not this kind of spoliation be immensely more insupportable to 
free citizens, as it would be unconstitutional in regard to the 
incompetency of their judge, and shameful to their nation, than 
all the Mexican outrages of which they complain '1 

Gentlemen, our only natural judge in this matter is our own 
government. It is its duty to ascertain, by legal means and pro- 
per persons, the justice, injustice, or exaggeration of each private 



28 

* 

claim, yet not without hearing each in iresled party in the sup- 
port of its action ; and, when it finds that its own agents, con- 
suls, charges d'affaires, plenipotentiary or extraordinary ministers, 
&c., together with valid sworn witnesses, authentic written 
vouchers, and the general voice of the people, unanimously coin- 
cide to establish the correctness of the claim ; when it has con- 
scientiously efTaced from the list of claims those which were in 
its opinion of a doubtful nature, as it has done ; when it has sub- 
mitted its opinions on the subject, and all the documents pre- 
sented, to several Congresses ; when these Congresses have 
acquired, in consequence of free and public debates, such evi- 
dences and convictions as to proclaim, in consonance with the 
executive, the actual existence of sufficient motives to declare 
and justify immecZiafe war; when such accumulatipn of public 
acts and facts have been published to the world, who could with 
justice suspect the government of partiality to its subjects, of 
duplicity in its conduct, of gratuitous hostility to a neighboring, 
peaceful, innocent nation, and thus involve its own country in 
awful difficulties, only to favor private intrigues, from which 
nothing can result but contempt and defamation? It Avas in 
virtue of these momentous considerations that in every time, in 
every country, and under every political system, it has been the 
general practice of nations to consider their own governments 
lawfully competent in establishing. the true merit of the claims of 
their subjects against foreign powers, and to take into their hands 
the care or power of having them satisfied by force, when pacific 
negotiations have proved of no avail. 

We ought rather inquire whether a truly just and paternal 
government be obliged or not to do something better for its 
injured subjects. When we consider that^a victim of fortuitous 
accidents, such i^s shipwrecks, conflagrations, earthquakes, famine, 
pestilence, inundations, destructive invasions of savages etc. is 
entitled to immediate rehef from his government and society at 
large, we cannot conceive why the victims of an inhospitable and 



29 

ferocious neighbor ought to be wholly abandoned by society and 
the government of their own country to their unmerited fate ; 
and why is relief to be considered due, and afforded when no 
compensation for it is expected, and neither afforded nor even 
considered due when recompense may be exacted from the wan- 
ton offender 1 Shall absurdity and contradiction be the founda- 
tion of American jurisprudence'? This is imhappily the case 
with some of our public writers. We are told that, instead of 
succoring our citizens injured by Mexico, ^ve must tender a char- 
itable hand to that unhappy country to free it from the embar- 
rassments in which it has been pleased to throw itself, and in 
which it has thrown all foreigners who, trusting to its fallacious 
offers and invitations, hav^e had the misfortune of entering into 
amicable relations with it, I will abstain from all comment on 
this kind of philanthropy more fond of Mexican dollars than of 
the honor of our nation and the safety of our citizens. 

Ill my opinion, a government betrays its most sacred duties 
by not redressing of itself the wrongs caused to its subjects by a 
foreign nation, when legally proved, retaining to itself the right 
of exacting, by any peaceful or warlike means, a just compen- 
sation from the offending party ; and it is its duty not to defer the 
verification of the true importance of the injur}'^ to any future 
time, because every day of delay may deprive the claimant of 
the best opportunities to produce the necessary evidence of the 
damages he has suffered : important witnesses may disappear 
from the country or from the world ; written documents may be 
mislaid or destroyed ; and facts, certain and notorious to-day, 
may become doubtful, or be forgotten to-morrow. But, if the 
life of the claimant himself succumbs to misfortune, misery, old 
age or any other superior force, where and how will his sur- 
viving and innocent family find the relief to which its deceased 
chief was entitled ] Why then should a nation maintain an 
army, a navy, a government, a number of commercial and diplo- 
matic agents in foreign countries, if condemned to regret the 



30 

sacrifice it lias made of a part of its natural liberty, without any 
hope of enjoying safely the remainder in its social condition 1 
We boast of freedom, moral, knowledge, rectitude, patriotism, — 
this is right ; but the eyes of the world are fixed on us ; and we 
cannot liide from them our true merits or demerits. History will 
not copy our gazettes ; its inexorable judgments will place the 
names of our would-be heroes in their proper light, and fix with 
equal impartiahty the opinion of posterity upon our beauties and 
deformities. Were I better acquainted with the English lan- 
guage, I should be enabled to descant more fully and in more 
-elegant language than I can at present. 

SECOND QUESTION WAR. 

I do not intend, gentlemen, to deliver here a lecture on the 
law of nations, on the right of war and peace, nor upon the 
duties and rights of governments. I shall therefore refrain from 
examining or quoting the various doctrines of either Justinian, 
Puffendorf, Grotius, Barbeyrac, Hobbes, Wolfius, Vattel, or 
others on the subject. My only design is to remove as far as 
lies in my imperfect capacity, all prejudices and errors that could 
induce influential men to take improper resolutions and measures 
in the delicate affair, which forms the object of this meeting. 
Let it suffice, then, to consider that, if civil societies have laws, 
that is, permitting, forbidding, tolerating and coactive rules, esta- 
blished by themselves to determine the conduct of each of their 
members towards himself and his fellow-citizens, nations are 
subject to no km properly speaking. Nations are but moral 
bodies, essentially independent from each other, and acknow- 
ledging no general law, no superior judge, no coercive power 
which should lawfully subject them to any other sway but their 
own. There is not, then, and there cannot be a true law of 
nations, unless by these words we understand the aggregate of 
those precepts and rules which reason and experience dictate 
to every sovereign state to secure self-preservation by removing- 



31 

all possible germs of political subversions. These precepts and 
rules have been in all ages the offspring of philosophy, and the 
subjects of the most profound meditations to pubhcists, who, con- 
sulting the history of mankind and its natural tendencies and 
imperfections, have presented their own salutary thoughts to the 
consideration of human associations, as mere suggestions on their 
part. These very precepts and rules, voluntarily adopted by civil- 
ized nations, and followed with more or less exactness by them, 
constitute what we call, "Zaio of nations. ^^ Each nation has, 
however, preserved to itself the right (and indeed it could not 
renounce it witiiout abandoning all pretensions to iiidependence 
and sovereignty) of interpreting the works of the jurists, as their 
wisdom may suggest. The only point, in which all nations seem 
indiscriminately to agree (because it is their common and vital 
interest to do so), is to unite their moral or physical efforts against 
those nations or sovereigns, who, abusing their independence, 
their own strength, and certain eventual circumstances peculiar 
to them, do not scruple- wantonly and unjustly to attack the 
rights of other sovereigns or nations. Let us now return (o our 
case. 

Have a number of American citizens been unjustly injured 
by Mexico in their persons and property, or not? Has our 
government and our nation been gratuitously outraged by Mexico, 
or not ] This double question has been fully and unanimously 
resolved in the affirmative by our government, by our Congress, 
by the voice of the whole Union, by the various statements of 
disinterested and respectable foreigners, and I wauld add, by the 
proved justice of our own claims. This truth has been acknow- 
ledged by the most ardent advocates of Mexico themselves, who 
(not daring to plead for the innocence of their client) only allege 
its right to our equity, 

1st. because the wrongs she has inflicted upon us are not 
of so ancient a date as to justify our present urging for redress : 

2d. because, at all events, the continual civil disturbances 
of that country have rendered it impossible to settle its contests 
with us, up to this day : 



32 

3cl. because, on the other hand, the nature of these contests 
is extremely complicated, as they run on questions of interna- 
tional politics, of laws of nationsj of commercial treaties, etc. 

4th. because in all our neg-otiations with Mexico relating to 
an amicable adjustment, the government of that country has 
evinced its good will, its desire for peace, etc. 

5th. because justice, equity, prudence, reason, loyalty, wis- 
dom, generosity, philanthropy etc. must preside over our councils, 
and be the guide of our steps in the career of glory, etc. 

6th. And because we must abstain from abusing our strength 
against a weak and distracted country, and only employ it chari- 
tably to help it to free itself from the embarrassments, in which 
it is involved (alluding perhaps to its actual war with France, 
. and to a probable attack from Great Britain.) 

To these allegations we could reply what we have already 
seen, not by specious and vague assertions, but by the most unde- 
niable facts^ namely ; that the question for redress is pending for 
more than twenty years ; that the perpetual interior troubles of 
Mexico, which are the necessary result of her incapacity for self- 
government, ought by no means prejudice the interests of other 
nations ; that no complicated questions of international law are 
to be discussed, but facts, and nothing but facts, that is, outrages 
of all kinds inflicted upon innocent persons, a friendly govern- 
ment, a generous neighboring nation ; that our treaty with 
Mexico has been by her alone repeatedly and wilfully trampled 
upon ; that the good will shown by her government for adjust- 
ment and peace, has constantly been a succession of snares to our 
credulity and good faith; that all the possible dictates of reason, 
and all the imaginable principles of philanthropy, have been 
exhausted in vain on our part, to obtain justice and redress ; and 
we say now, that the weakness of an offender, be it an individual 
or a nation, does not command or justify impunity. 

Nevertheless we ought to distinguish in this question what 
is strictly just from what is only convenient, and we must acknow- 
ledge that if justice might be sacrificed to convenience without 
injuring our national honor and individual interests, peace ought 



33 

to be preferred to war: summum jus, summa injuria. I say more; 
if the sacrifice of individual interests is indispensable to preserve 
peace without leaving impaired our national dignity, every injur- 
ed citizen ought to renounce his pretensions in full ; for if we are 
obliged to expose even our life for the security and glory of our 
country, it would be an absurdity to disregard such a sacred duty 
for the sake of subaltern interests. But if this very renunciation 
cannot efface the stain already impressed by unaccountable and 
serious insults on the part of our unprovoked foe on our national 
colours; if our forbearance would be surely interpreted as cow- 
ardice, imbecility or weakness; if our individual disinterested- 
ness would produce no other effect than to encourage the first 
aggressor to new offences ; then I must be allowed to say that we 
can, without selfishly or basely preferring our personal welfare to 
that of our beloved country, firmly insist upon all redress due to 
us by Mexico : nay, the tears and the sufferings of our wives and 
of our children, of the fate of whom we are not the legitimate 
masters, impose upon us this duty; and the whole society of 
which we are members, cannot refrain from espousing our holy 
cause without betraying itself, and thus descending shamefully 
from the high rank it has so worthily occupied up to this moment 
amongst the most enlightened nations upon earth. 

But war is an awful scourge. Who doubts it 1 Nations, in 
this case begin by trying the peaceful way of negotiations, of 
mediations, of arbitrations, and then the painful one of reprisals, 
retaliations, retortions, war being the ultima ratio. But the former 
way has proved unsuccessful in our case : our long negotiations 
with Mexico have produced no effect;, a mediation is impossible or 
dangerous; an arbiuation violates individual rights; and now it 
will be easily demonstrated that to resort to retaliations, reprisals or 
retortions against Mexico, would be likewise for us to incur the fate 
of Tantalus. The Mexicans have nothing to lose and everything 
to gain in their depredations upon foreigners ; and this encoura- 
ges them to add to their savage crimes the most insolent con- 
5 



34 

tempt for all the clamors of their victims. They have no mili- 
tary navy to be sunk by the canon ; no merchant vessels to be 
confiscated ; no arsenals to burn down ; no active commerce, no 
industry^ no manufactures^ to be destroyed; no travellers to be 
exposed to answer in their persons for the cruel iniquities of their 
country. Accustomed, as they are, to feed themselves with 
metis (Indian corn), with cAi/e (cayenne pepper), and with pulque 
(fermented juice of the maguey), and to cover their limbs with 
skins of animals, the closing of their ports by foreign squadrons, 
would be utterly insignificant to them. They fear therefore 
nothing from the resentful foreigner excepting a regular and 
powerful invasion of their territory. This remedy would be war 
itself, in the strongest sense of the word, and it would prove infal- 
lible. Their absolute want of instruction, of discipline, of a true 
soldier-like bravery, and of a true patriotism of which they 
have not the slightest notion except in favor of their holy vir- 
ginSi and of their bottomless pockets, will not be an adequate 
defence against a few foreign battalions. 

War is an awful scourge, we have already said ; but una- 
voidable ; and why 1 because offence and resentment, these two 
essential characteristics of our imperfect nature, are and must be 
inseparable, under tlie penalty of the world becoming a large 
cemetery of men and nations immolated with impunit}'^ to 
ambition and ferocity. 

Chose then peace with Mexico, and a perpetual vexation 
to our commerce, a systematic oppression of our citizens, unceas- 
ing affronts to our flag, to our name, to our national character; 
or war, but only a war of a few months, if well conducted, pro- 
ducing perhaps a momentary suspension of business in a few 
counting-houses, but a futurity permanently prosperous to the 
Union, and to foreigners in general? Putin a balance all the 
wrongs caused by Mexican barbarity to our commerce, to our 
citizens and to the dearest interests of the whole of our nation at 
large, in conlra-position with all the good which a few merchants 



35 

may have been happy enough to derive from that, country, and you 
will feel ashamed of the result. Go yourselves and spend some 
weeks in that paradise inhabited by infernal spirits, and you will 
soon perceive that the dangers alone, if not the actual losses and 
outrages, which an American is encountering there in one da\^, can- 
not by any means be compensated by all the commercial lucre that 
all the United States could possibly expect in I en years from the 
most peaceful intercourse with the whole of Spanish America. 
Shall, on the other hand, an American merchant buy his fortune 
with the blood and the ruin of his fellow-citizens, and (he scorn 
of the very social body, of which he is himself a member! 

We are a nation essentiall}'^ commercial ; but commerce is 
essentially connected with politics, and sound politics require 
that both our tranquility at home and our good reputation abroad 
be inviolably maintained. Hence a government that suffers its 
subjects to be regarded and treated, with impunity, as beasts of 
burden in foreign countries, creates malcontents and discord 
amongst the people over whose destinies it presides, and renders 
the whole nation a mere object of mockery to the rest of the 
globe. Then commerce is exposed to all sorts of vicissitude, and 
the political existence of the nation is but a very precarious 
blessing. 

Yes: a nation that regards with indifference affront and 
scorn, is always suspected of pusillanimity or weakness; and if 
her indifference be the effect of partial mercantile regard, it is 
always suspected of meanness and sordidness. True, she is pej- 
haps the innocent victim of a public administration badly under- 
stood and worsely conducted ; but who is ignorant (hat the vices 
of a government are always attributed, especially among foreign- 
ers, to the whole nation] 

Far from me be the idea of charging our own government 
with the least reproach ; I am, and I have always been a sincere 
admirer of its wisdom ; and I feel with equal sincerity inclined to 
think that the measures it may have taken in the case, however 



36 

apparently slow, equivocal, or illegal, will ultimately result to the 
best advantage of the sufferers. I have solely been willing to 
state here some general principles of social intercourse and uni- 
versal jurisprudence, which ought, in my opinion, to form the 
constant guide of all governments, and of all people desirous of 
ranking amongst well polished nations. 

It remains now for me to call your patient and generous 
attention to a succinct investigation about the manner and the 
time, in v^hich hostilities ought to commence on our part. 

Our war with Mexico ought to be of the shortest duration 
possible, and prove the least prejudicial to us, and to Mexi- 
co herself. This double honest end can be easih^, and I venture 
to say also, with certainty obtained by our acting in consonance 
with the actual expedition of France, whose contest with that 
country is identically of the same nature as our own. But, to 
prevent the narrow-minded from charging me with having pro- 
posed a cowardly measure, I shall develope here ray ideas on the 
subject. 

The measure I propose would be, according to ray view of 
the case, lawful, dutiful, and far from its being ungenerous, ex- 
tremely benevolent. Let us demonstrate this, and conclude. 

Lawful . It has been disputed 

whether France has lawfully attacked Mexico in the war now 
raging between those two powers. That Mexico is wrong in the 
contest no one could deny without subverting every idea of truth 
and iustice. The right of the French is so universally acknow- 
ledged, that it would be as useless for rae to dwell upon this topic, 
as to throw a drop of honey into tlve ocean (o sweeten its water. 
Facts of the raost unquestionable nature have established this 
truth. The crimes perpetrated in Mexico against French sub- 
jects ; the insults lavished upon them, their king and their nation, 
less by the canaille than by the public authorities and the press; 
the outrages and spoliations that the Mexicans are accustomed to 
inflict, as a matter of course, upon all foreigners, especially Arae- 



.37 

riean and English ; the circumstance of the Mexicans being 
entirely under the control of ambitions Spaniards and intolerant 
priests, two implacable enemies of light and religious freedom, 
and consequently of all French intercourse with their victims ; 
the improbability of France having engaged in an expensive war 
to extort from a distant and inoffensive nation the ridiculous sum 
of six hundred thousand dollars ; the constant and notorious 
practice of the few leaders, who monopolize the powder in the 
country, to promote internal and external disturbances, for having 
a pretext of imposing forced loans and contributions, with which 
they overload their own pockets; the consciousness of their hav- 
ing every thing to gain and nothing to lose in their depredations 
upon foreigners, as I have already stated, this is but an imperfect 
tableau of evidences in favor of the French. And that Mexico is 
superior to France in this quarrel, if not in valor or knowledge, at 
least on account of her topographical situation (a gift from hea- 
ven to that good people), no impartial examiner of the matter 
will disavow. 

Now, to condemn all revenge on our part against Mex- 
ico, is to make evidently the satire of the French, who have 
unsheathed the sword, for motives not more important than ours, 
to bring that government to reason. Yet the French are altoge- 
ther a valiant, enlightened and courteous people. Why, then, 
has not France had for that j^oor country the regards which are 
now exacted from the United States 1 

Let us remember that we have accused Mexico not of her 
having delayed, on account of her pecuniary embarrassments, the 
redress we have asked, but for having impudently denied the 
justice of our demand ; not of her having had no time to exa- 
mine our complicated and numerous claims, as it is alleged in her 
favor, but for disregarding them all ; not of her impotence in pre- 
venting the people from doing harm to us, but for having employ- 
ed all her political, judiciary, military and religious means to cause 
to us, ex professo, all possible mischiefs; not of her having had 



38 . 

no leisure to negociate for peace, but for having- approved the con- 
duct of her negociators in rejecting all peaceful proposals, calum- 
niating our government, and insulting our nation ; not of having 
been an impassible witness of the numberless outrag-es commit- 
ted by her authorities against our citizens, our commerce, our 
flag, but for having rewarded the offenders ; not of having made 
to us false protestations of friendship or deceitful promises, but for 
having openly violated the treaty existing between her and us, 
erecting herself into a claimant against us, threatening our com- 
merce with the closing of her ports, etc. thus adding menaces to 
offences, insults to menaces, and mockery to insults. And here 
we should remavk en passant that, if a few equivocal words of 
president Jackson had given such an offence to France that the 
mediation of England became necessary to prevent a rupture 
between France and the United States, I see no reason why an 
impudent Mexican threat must prove for us a loving- compliment. 
Nor can Mexico be presumed ignorant that the violation of a 
treaty is not an individual offence, but a cause entirely national 
although a single individual might be the victim of the violation. 
She must be aware that any stipulation whatever cannot be in- 
fringed, in any of its parts, by one of the contracting parties 
without depriving the other of the rights acquired by it ; and 
that if these parties are nations, the injury is national. Has it 
not been repeated millions of times that the honor and the peace 
of nations repose on the faith of treaties.] We can, therefore 
state that a declaration of war on our part would be eminently 
lawful. 

Dutiful : Let me speak now, gentlemen, not of the right 
of American citizens and the American nation against Mexico ; 
but solely of the right of the American citizens and the Ameri- 
can nation to an efficient protection of their own government : 
in other words, of the positive and indispensable duty of all 
governments to revenge fully the wrongs inflicted on its citizens 
by u foreign government or nation. 



39 

The duty of all governments is to conform themselves with 
the existing laws both international and common. They must 
execute them under the penalty of being arraigned for high trea- 
son, and neither run blindly after the republic of Plaio, that 
is, after shades and chimeras, nor adopt impracticable tenets of a 
pseudo-philanthropy. An injury done to a citizen is done to 
the whole politic body ; and as governments are obliged to avenge 
it, nations have of course the right to compel them to comply 
with their duty. 

Is it possible that the government of the United States should 
be imposed upon by the brawling of a few merchants, who under 
the pretext of the general commercial welfare, aim only to immo- 
late the dignity of the whole nation to their timid covetousness 1 
Would not such men be equally disposed to sell their country to 
the highest bidder, be it a Mexican monk or a Turkish bashaw^ 
Entirely busy in counting and re-counting again and again their 
Mexican dollars, they take not the least notice of the sailors, 
captains, travelling clerks, etc. whom they expose to so many 
and such cruel dangers on the Mexican coasts, nor do tliey think, 
but for a few seconds, of so many of their partners or country- 
men, who have been either stabbed, shot, loaded with irons, or 
stripped of every thing, in that very country from which they 
receive those dollars. Anuomentary gain so blinds their eyes thai 
they do not apprehend their own danger by trading with a people 
whose only virtues are pillage and assassination ; they do not 
perceive that the impunity which they are advocating in favor of 
Mexico, will sooner or later destroy their own fortunes. The 
hope of the smallest profit by smuggling into a Mexican port 
some barrels of powder or some kegs of lard, ought to prevail in 
their opinion, to the general interest of having our flag respected, 
our citizens protected, our government honored, and our national 
dignity unstained. From the tremblinglips of these gentlemen we 
hear daily those pathetic exclamations tending to awake sympa- 
thy in behalf of acountry, which for the honor of mankind ought 
to be effaced from all the geographical maps. " Let us be gene- 
rous, they say, and forgive an ignorant and weak nation." The 



40 

device of every liuly generous nation is this, gentlemen : Parcere 
suhjectis, el debellare superbos. . The Mexicans, I know them, are 
pride itself personified, and there exists no rational hope of 
correction. 

We do not think, moreover, of what has happened for so many 
years, and is still happening to thousands of our countrymen in 
South America. Our State Department has hitherto published 
only our claims on Mexico ; so that we are wholly ignorant of 
those of our citizens upon Colombia, Chili, Bolivia, Peru, Bue- 
nos-Ayres, Guatemala, Brazil, etc., and only the press has inform- 
ed us from time to time of the horrors to which our citizens, our 
commerce and our official agents, have been subjected in those 
regions. not less inhospitable than Mexico, and to which a con- 
stant and ungenerous impunity has given room. In such circum- 
stances, our giving a salutary lesson to Mexico will cure radically 
I am confident, the savage madness of those ex-hispano-Portu- 
g-uese colonists against us and foreigners in general. This 
consideration will not escape, I trust, from the wisdom of our 
government. 

Two words more on this subject. In speaking of reprisals, 
Vattel seijt : " Individuals, upon whom reprisals fall, ought to be 
recompensed b}' their own sovereign, this being a debt of the 
state or nation." Why, then, should net individuals, injured by 
a foreign sovereign or nation, and not by way of just reprisals, 
but despotically, be relieved, at least in some measure, by their 
own government, that is legally invested with the right of ex- 
acting, whenever it may judge proper, from the offending sove- 
reign a recompense proportionate to the damages he has caused? 
Moreover, as the legal rule is that : " it is for the plaintiff to prove 
his right," and as his government neither affords him relief, nor 
procures it from the offender but when time will have destroyed 
his life or his possibility to " prove his right," is it not evident that 
such a government becomes virtually an accomplice of the offender? 

A war against Mexico would, consequently, be as dutiful as 
lawful, and admitting of no ulterior delay. 

Finally, Benevolent. Let us first remove all ideas of cow- 



4i 

ardice about the measure I have proposed, and then the benevo- 
lence of it will appear in all its light, 

"When a nation (says the publicist I have already quoted) 
by its manners, or the maxims of its government, accustoms and 
authorises its citizens to plunder, and use iW foreigners indifferent- 
ly, or to make inroads into the neighboring countries .... 
all nations have a right to enter into a league against such a peo- 
ple, to repress them, and to treat them as the common enemies of 
the human race.''^ 

" If there be any where a nation of a restless and mischiev- 
ous disposition, always ready to injure others, to traverse their de- 
signs, or to raise domestic troubles, it is not to be doubted that all 
have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever 
after out of its power to injure them." 

" If there be any nation that makes an open profession of 
trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating (he right 
of others whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human 
society will authorize others to unite in order to humble and 
chastise it." 

"We ought not to say in general that we have received an 
injury from a nation, because we have received it from one of its 
members. But if a nation, or its leader, approves and ratifies the 
fact committed by a citizen, it makes the act its own ; the offence 
ought then to be attributed to the nation, as the author of the 
true injury, of which the citizen is perhaps only the instrument." 

"The offended has a right to provide for his security for the 
future, and to punish the offender by inflicting upon him a pain 
capable of deterring him afterwards from the like attempts ; and 
of intimidating those who shall be tempted to imitate him. He 
may, if necessary, put the aggressor out of the condition to injure 
him." 

" All nations (weak or strong) are obliged to do justice to 
all others with respect to their pretensions, and to remove all 
their just subjects of complaint." 
6 



42 

" All nations (strong or weak) are obliged to render to every- 
one what is its due, to leave them in the peaceable enjoyment of 
their rights, to repair the damage it may have caused, or the 
injury it has done ; to give a just satisfaction for an injury it can- 
not repair, and reasonable sureties for what has given cause of 
fear." 

" Between powers that are nearly equal, suffering an injury 
without requiring a complete satisfaction, is almost always im- 
puted to weakness or cowardice : it is the means of soon receiv- 
ing others that are the most atrocious." 

After these fundamental tenets of international law, tho- 
rouglily applicable to our case, to the nature of our contest with 
Mexico, and to all the characteristics of the Mexican genius and 
o-overnment, who would dare impute to us cowardice, should we 
now attack that country without any regard for its actual em- 
barrassments 7 If artifice, surprise or stratagem are honest 
means to secure victory, I do not see why a superior force should 
not be employed to hasten the termination of the quarrel by com- 
pelling, as soon as possible, an enemy to sue for peace. Do not 
governments or nations employ, whenever they can, in all wars, 
thousands of bayonets against hundreds 1 Is this cowardice 1 
The Romans pushed so far their heroism, as " to send notice, 
says the same publicist, of the place and time for giving bat- 
tle ;" and he adds : " in this conduct there was more generosity 
than discretion. It would be, indeed, very laudable if, as in the 
frenzy of duels, the only business was to display personal courage ; 
but a war is made to defend our country, to prosecute by force 
what is unjustly denied us, and the surest means are also the most 
commendahle, provided they be not unlawful and odious in them- 
selves," as poison, assassination, &c. In this we leave to the 
Mexican hero of the Alamo and Goliad, all the glory, without 
envying it. 

Has then France justly deserved the imputation of cow- 
ardice by attacking Mexico whilst afflicted by penury and inter- 



43 

nal troubles 1 And would England merit censure by joining 
France against those mischievous and incorrigible people, to recover 
a sum of eighty millions of dollars which she has had the impru- 
dent generosity of trusting to them '? Or could the same censure 
fall reasonably upon the United States, if they join France 
and England, less for procuring redress to themselves than for 
subduing in the shortest time and with the least possible effusion 
of blood, a general enemy of mankind ] " No, (our fashionable 
philanthropists reply), let us abstain from oppressing a weak 
people !" In virtue of such a grave decision, let society then 
abstain from punishing a traitor, a murderer, or an incendiary. 
Let weakness be the shield of impunity, and impunity the shield 
of crime ; in one word, let the culprit be respected solely for the 
sake of his being weaker than the avenger of his offences, and 
let his victims share the fate of Ugclini, who, condemned to die 
by hunger with his three infant sons, expired in his jail after 
having devoured the tender arms that those innocent creatures 
raised towards their unhappy parent imploring bread. 

A powerful nation should not abuse her strength to oppress 
a weak and mq^enswe people ; agreed. But should a powerful 
nation fall a passive victim to criminal insolence, only because 
she is stronger than the offender 1 

I would now deny the supposition of the Mexican weakness 
in our case. Fighting in their own homes, and supplied with all 
necessary provisions and military resources, how can they be con- 
sidered a weak nation, in comparison with a limited number of 
vessels and a few thousand troops, going from distant regions to 
encounter eight milhons of persons in arms, and foraine, pesti- 
lence, impassable Thermopyltes, etc. 1 We could quote our Indians, 
of Florida, whose insignificant numerical force is so powerful in 
their huts, caves, marshes and forests, that we, a nation of six- 
teen millions of brave people, have been unable to subdue them, 
notwithstanding the sacrifice of some thousands of our best sol- 
diery, and several millions of dollars from our national treasury. 



44 

But to attack Mexico when her forces will have been entirely 
exhausted in opposing the French, and perhaps the English, as 
well as her own insurgents, would it not be a true cowardice on 
our part? . No, "a true bravery," would our philanthropists 
reply. 

From what I have had the honor of stating to you, gentle- 
men, and supposing the indispensable necessity of a war against 
Mexico, it will be easy to conclude that this war is not only law- 
ful and useful but benevolent. 

Children must be forced to swallow a bitter medicine to pre- 
serve their life. Are you friends to Mexicans 1 Give them a 
solid and salutary lesson. Central, federal, monarchical, theocrat- 
ic, military etc. be the form of their government whatever it may, 
they are absolutely incapable of self-government : anarchy will 
ever be the only result of their best efforts to secure interior or 
exterior peace. They can only from without expect salvation. 
Left to themselves, they are not susceptible of the least ameliora- 
tion, because they are incapable of discovering the true causes of 
their misgovernraent. Laboring under tlie influence of a rapa- 
cious priesthood, of ambitious Spaniards, of a fanatic nobility, 
and of their own ignorance and apathy, they attribute their dis- 
tressing situation solely to their political constitution, and to the 
conduct of their rulers what is only the effect of their religious 
intolerance, of their hereditary hatred against foreigners, their pre- 
sumption of being the first nation in the world, their absolute want 
of morality and sociability etc. These fatal errors, of which every 
thing announces the perpetuity amongst the Mexicans, are the true 
causes of the continual downfalls of their governments, and pro- 
nunciamientos against their own laws, systems, reforms and prin- 
ciples. Mexico is then a chaos that only a foreign cannon can 
develope. 

Has Mexico the right of isolating herself from the rest of the 
social world 1 Has she the power of doing so 1 Is this her 
interest 1 



45 

In the affirmative, let her at once decree a prohibition to all 
strangers to enter her territory ; but to all strangers, because she 
has not the right of granting privileges to one nation to the preju- 
dice of another. Let her annul all her diplomatic treaties, and 
proclaim the policy of China, Japan, or Paraguay. We are then 
warned not to approach her coasts, and enabled to act con- 
formably. " The sovereign ought not to grant an entrance into 
his dominions to make strangers fall into a snare.'' [Vattel.) 

But in the negative, the Mexican doors must be opened both 
to foreigners and to civilization. Are you then friends to Mexico, 
I would repeat 1 Give them a solid, and benevolent lesson ; and, 
send your prayers to Congress accordingly. 



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